Over the years there have been numerous types and styles of marine buoys designed to serve various functions. Marine buoys or floatable markers are not only used to define safe channels of passage through waterways but are also utilized to mark specific locations such as to identify specific fishing spots, traps for marine life including crab pots and lobster traps, or to mark specific subsurface locations so that such locations may be readily relocated for future research, investigation and/or testing.
Known portable buoys are not readily used because of various flaws in their designs. Although most known buoys automatically unwind an anchor line from a spool during deployment, retrieval of the buoys is time consuming. In addition, when known buoys are deployed in water with wave heights of about one foot or more, they tend to disappear from sight within the troughs of the waves. A need therefore exists for buoys which overcome the deficiencies of known buoys.